BERNARD Emile (1868-1941)

Lot 3
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Estimation :
800 - 1000 EUR
Result with fees
Result : 780EUR
BERNARD Emile (1868-1941)
7 L.A.S. and 2 autograph POEMS signed "Emile Bernard" or "E. Bernard", [ca. 1918-1920], to his friend Joanne ROLDES (one to her mother); 19 pages in-8 or in-4, one vignette for La Rénovation esthétique (some slight cracks and wetness on the edges). Nice set of letters with poems to a charming friend. From Tonnerre (end of 1918), he writes to Mrs. Roldes, worrying about her son Jean's airplane accident: "The happy end of the war should not be fatal to your dear and valiant child". He awaits his visit to Tonnerre... Around the same time, he writes to his "charming friend", from whom he receives a letter. He could not write to her, having worked hard on a book of verses (probably Après la chute, published in 1918), and on a study on "Charles Baudelaire, critic of art and aesthetician" for the Mercure de France (where it will appear in October 1919). He evokes Mr. Dalbrel, Miss Roldes' neighbor, whom he asks to send him verses... A beautiful letter to his "charming and divine friend" evokes a painting in progress: "Your basket is posed, and your cherries, and your unalterable memory... This is to say that I am captive of colors and brushes. The letter contains a sonnet, L'Art passionné: "From the supple linen which flows / To the too real nude of the body / Let us form the clouds of gold / Where nothing hard is molded"... A long letter, decorated with the vignette drawn by Bernard for the review La Rénovation esthétique, also contains a poem. From Burgundy, he sends his friend's father a plan to improve the cultivation of the fields: "This is not an artist's reverie". He asks her opinion on the portrait he made of her. He sends the beginning (20 verses) of a poem of chivalrous inspiration: " I got up this morning / Thinking of that distant time / That Artus adorned with his peerage, / Flourished with chivalry "... Another letter begins thus: "He reproaches her for preferring the city where "the rolling of cars replaces the song of finches and nightingales"... He sends her a poem, Air à chanter (16 verses): "Viens allons sur la plage au doux frôlis des ondes" (Let's go to the beach and enjoy the softness of the waves)... From Paris (15 quai Bourbon), he says his pleasure to have seen her again and to have heard her speak "with clairvoyance and bloom". He is "quite happy to think of the beautiful evolution of your soul"... Sunday evening, to his "charming friend". He has a "great sorrow, you have refused me the name of friend that you gave me so kindly. Why did you do that? Because - as a friend - I told you quite frankly a few things... Yes, very little, compared to all the good I think of you. Finally, you made me the big eyes, your face darkened and I saw that I had touched - without wanting it - the modesty of your soul "... He hopes for her forgiveness... One of the sonnets is entitled For Joanne Roldes : " The Sphinx said : " Guess or die ! " / But Christ today says to us : / "Glimpse in Heaven the glimmerings / Of the Eden that was forbidden" .... The other sonnet is dedicated "to M. Dalbrel in thanks for his beautiful verses" : "Like Hercules purging the universe of monsters"...
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